Why can't I use the bucket tool on a merged layer!?

[Sophiee04]

I drew the face on one layer and the hair on another, but now I want them on the same layer, so I merged them and then tried to use the bucket tool to color them in and it's not working, and it still shows the layers as separate orange boxes!! Is there any way to make it one layer!?

Here's the file if you need it socialanxietymeme1.fla - Google Drive

[macpawel · Accepted solution]

Select all objects on your 150 frame (MergedLayer_3) and use CTRL+B shortcut to Break apeart your graphics. Then you can use Bucket tool without problems

[Sophiee04]

Thank you so much! It worked!

[kdmemory]

Hi Sophie..

In the MergedLayer_3 from frame 151 to 173 are 3 drawing objects. There's firstly the outline of the hair, secondly the outline of the eyes and thirdly the outline of the face. These what you call orange boxes are shape tween animations of in Layer_23 the eyes and in Layer_22 the eyebrows. So not at all your merged visuals.

I'm not sure which layers you actually merged, but those two with the shape tweens need to be seperate.

If you want to fill the stuff in the MergedLayer_3, select all 3 drawing objects, move them to an emptier stage area and break them apart. You can do that in the Properties Panel or press ctrl+b (windows) or cmd+b (mac). Now you can fill the hair-outline without a problem. Because the eyes-outline is not closed, you have to fill both, eyes and face with the desired face color and then temporarily close the eyes outline and fill those with white (or whatever). Afterwards use the brush tool to remove the temporary eyes outline closure. Now you can select the entire shape composition and convert it back into an drawing object. Move it back to the desired position. In order to have the eyes and eyebrows (shape tweens) in front you will have to drag the MergedLayer_3 two layers down in the timeline.

enjoy

Klaus

[Sophiee04]

Thank you!